Poppies and socks galore

Friday morning I noticed some action (finally) on the kitchen windowsill. That black strip in the background is the window. Due to the time change it is now pitch dark when I get up in the morning:

That barely visible teeny tiny sprout in the upper right quandrant is the first of I hope several basil plants I’m growing from the seeds of the previous plant. It only took this sprout 6 weeks to show itself (insert sarcasm here; 6 weeks?!? Is that normal?). And the other seeds? Perhaps they’re shy, or perhaps they have heard of my black thumb and have entered some sort of suicide pact, deciding to stay in the dirt rather than face my unique version of plant care. Time will tell.

After work we drove to my parents’ house and Saturday we had a fitting: I am very happy to announce that my mom’s socks fit! Before socks, though, my mom, Mr. MmmYarn, and I went for a walk along the coast. The California poppies are in bloom and are mighty glorious:

What? Not close enough? How about this:

The view on the other side of the path was nothing to sneeze at, either:

For poor Mr. MmmYarn it was all something to sneeze at as the pollen was out in full force. But for me, the luckily allergy-free, it was just so pretty out there that I had to snap a bunch of photos. Both sides of the path seen together, our walk looked something like this:

Nice, huh? But I did promise you socks galore, too, so here they come. We got back from our walk, my mom tried on all three pairs of socks, and I got to work grafting the toes. My stepbrother and his family showed up when I was nearly finished and my stepniece asked me what the socks looked like before I grafted them. I held up a skein of yarn and her eyes went wide with amazement and she gave a big grin. Future knitter? I finished up the last couple of toes, then the socks all went outside for their photo shoot.

Pair #1 with its banded colors reminds me of a snakeskin:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Austermann Step; 75% wool, 25% nylon, contains aloe and jojoba oil; color 01
Needles: size 2

Pair #2 looks like army camouflage to me:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Regia Stretch Color; 70% wool, 3% nylon, 7% polyester; color 88
Needles: size 2

I actually took several photos of each pair, against varying backdrops, but the lawn photos turned out best in each case, so you’ll need to see pair #3 against green, too. Ah, Trekking, with its lovely gradual and blended color changes:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Trekking Pro Natura; 75% superwash wool, 25% bamboo; color 1603
Needles: size 2

I hope you are not tired of socks yet as I have one more to show you. Mr. MmmYarn drove part of the way so I worked on my sock in progress in the car, but I am still working out some kinks in my design, making for slow work. The sock came to knitting group tonight. Now you see it:

Now you don’t:

Sigh.

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